Great tool!!! Autosubmit a template enquiry submission online!!!

[BellyBelly]

If you are wanting to contribute to the senate enquiry but are worried about the time it will take or the effort or perhaps you're not sure what to write, someone has made it REALLY easy for you. On the petition page listed below (which would be great if you could sign!) there is also on the right hand side a ready written template letter which you just add your name to and send - just like you have written it yourselves. VERY simple and quick. Please send one in - there's no reason we can't beat the record of over 2,000 submissions last time - we have to be heard loud and clear this time.

Health Petitions

Here is the letter if you prefer, just edit/add/delete anything if you wish! Then simply email to: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au. DONE!!!!!

Dear Committee Members,

Women’s rights matter. Please do not put the interests of medical industry $$$$ ahead of the rights of mothers and families.

By making homebirth midwifery illegal, Australia would be out of step with other countries such as Canada, New Zealand the U.K and The Netherlands, where women can access midwifery care and choose to give birth at home. Something that is considered a normal reasonable choice in the U.K, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada is under threat of extinction in Australia.

Where have the reproductive rights of women gone? What about the established legal concepts of right of refusal/informed consent?

Where to give birth, and who attends, is a medical decision appropriately decided upon by the mother or family, not big government and big medical associations.

If a pregnant woman is competent and informed, it is her decision to make. Australian law allows patients to choose who will treat them and where, and even to refuse interventions – like transfusions – that medicos deem life-saving.

This means that even if evidence showed that hospital births were life-saving, pregnant women could still refuse them. Given that the evidence shows no such thing, this right seems even stronger.

A recent article in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology looked at 529,688 cases and found no difference in the health of babies born at home to low-risk women and those born in hospital. Another large study found that the only difference in outcomes favoured home birth, which produced babies with higher Apgar scores, and showed home births were less likely than hospital births to result in unnecessary and risky medical interventions, such as induced and augmented labour, forceps delivery and caesarean sections.

Maternity care is the largest volume area of health. There has been a growth in women seeking homebirth care, sadly many women are refugees of the dysfunctional and sometimes dangerous hospital system. Our maternity hospitals are full to the brim, many of them churning women out conveyor belt style and yet this is considered safe?

Mainstream Australian maternity care is not about women, women are rarely consulted in the development of services, they are the main player and yet they have been silenced by practitioners who insist they ‘know better’ and now the governmemnt is trying to silence women on behalf of this medical industry.

Homebirth on the other hand is different. Women make decisions about their care, they invite a midwife into their home, rather than be forced to meet the needs of practitioners and organisational convenience which happens when giving birth in a hospital.

The outcomes from homebirth are also considerably better. Women experience more personalised care and fewer interventions, they also enter motherhood happier and more content.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon plans to fund midwifery care under Medicare, something sorely needed. She has however excluded homebirth. She did this against all evidence and the express wishes of the women of Australia across two enquiries, one that broke a Senate record on the number of submissions received. This is not acting in the best interests of Australian society, this is acting for the best interests of the medical industry.

Denying independent midwives registration won't stop women from birthing at home. It will simply increase the risks they take doing so. It will be backyard abortion all over again – complete with shonky providers, death and suffering – except this time it's backyard birth.

Women need medical guidance, in the form of proper pre-natal care to know if home birth is a safe option for them. Professional, experienced, independent midwives can offer this advice, and a safe and secure environment for low-risk women who birth at home.

Will politicians continue to be more responsive to those with deep vested interest in maternity services? It is time to step up and listen to women, the very people for whom these so called reforms are proposed.

Signed,

xxxx